By Joseph S. Margai in Freetown, Sierra Leone
Residents around “Bormeh” dumpsite, which is situated in east of Freetown in Sierra Leone, August 21, 2017, deposited garbage on the two lanes of the Bai Bureh Road leading to central and western Freetown, causing serious traffic in that area.
Citizens say the situation was an eyesore and embarrassment to many decent Sierra Leoneans and foreigners who were caught up in traffic caused by the overflow of the Granville Brook dumpsite, popularly called Bormeh near ferry junction.
A businessman at Bai Bureh Road, where Bormeh dumpsite is situated, Noah Sesay, said they wanted the Bormeh dumpsite to be relocated because it has overflown and wastes have taken over two lanes leading to central and western Freetown.
“There is no effective monitoring at ‘Bormeh’ dumpsite. We have been seeing youth with tricycles depositing wastes on the main Bai Bureh Road, which is outside the fence of the dumpsite. The two lanes on the road were blocked causing lots of traffic this Monday morning,” Sesay said.
According to him, bad odor comes from the dumpsite and the situation is a bit better during the rains but in the dry season, the smoke that emanates from the dumpsite is toxic to humans, saying that they were only doing business at Bai Bureh Road because they don’t have other shops to transfer their business.
He blamed Freetown City Council (FCC) that has not been monitoring the situation at ‘Bormeh’ dumpsite.
Amara Keita, a carpenter at Bai Bureh Road, said the bad odor from the dumpsite was embarrassing to them, revealing that when he came to his carpentry workshop on Monday morning, he saw the wastes covering the two lanes of the road in front of ‘Bormeh’ dumpsite.
Responding to accusation that the wastes were deposited on the street by residents and people doing business around the vicinity, he denied by saying that all of them deposit their wastes at ‘Bormeh’ and not on the street.
According to him, the bulldozer that used to drag the wastes from the street to the dumpsite has been taken away since Saturday by an unknown person and since then the street has been overtaken by a heap of garbage.
However, Mohamed A.S. Koroma, acting Chief Administration of FCC, accused unpatriotic Sierra Leoneans for dumping their garbage on the street instead of taking them to ‘Bormeh’ dumpsite for proper disposal.
“The people’s attitude towards waste management is very poor. The people have littered the whole street with garbage thereby causing lots of traffic on the road. But as a responsible council, we have hired the services of three bulldozers to clean the entire area so as to ease the situation,” he said.
He said people cohabiting with the garbage collection area are at risk of contracting diseases like cholera, malaria, diarrhea, and many others, urging them to properly take their wastes to the dumpsite in order to prevent such diseases.
“As a council we are doing our best to ensuring that the dumpsite is well managed. We want the people to cooperate with us to also properly manage the site and they have a responsibility of not depositing their wastes outside the fence because it’s a recipe for health hazards,” he cautioned.
He said the dumpsite is well fenced and FCC is expecting the people living around the area to dump their wastes within the confine of the fence.
The FCC Chief Administrator said they have planned to engage the bulldozers for three days so as to ensure that the entire area is well cleaned.
One of the sides of the fence at ‘Bormeh’ dumpsite has collapsed but Mr. Koroma said plans are underway to re-erect it by the FCC.
Mr. Koroma assured that FCC’s police would be deployed at the dumpsite in order to urge people to dump their wastes with the fence and not outside it.
“This dumpsite is managed by MASADA Waste Management but FCC normally adds more muscles if the situation gets worse like it was,” he said.
He cautioned residents of Freetown using the dumpsite to properly manage their wastes by using the MASADA liter bins that are placed in their various communities instead of depositing them in gutters and streets.
